(KYIV) – Russian forces launched a major ballistic missile and drone barrage across Ukraine early Thursday, with explosions heard in the capital Kyiv and the port city of Odesa. Air raid alerts were sounded across much of the country.
Local officials in Zaporizhzhia reported at least seven people, including three children, were wounded in the attack on the city and surrounding areas.
Meanwhile, Russia’s second largest gasoline producer Lukoil has halted crude processing following Ukrainian drone strikes, with all major refineries currently offline. The Lukoil facility known as NORSI in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia’s fourth largest oil refinery, came under Ukrainian attack on Tuesday night.
The overnight attack damaged several processing units, interunit infrastructure and general plant facilities, forcing Lukoil to halt production. The NORSI refinery has an annual processing capacity of approximately 17 million metric tonnes of crude oil. It had previously been attacked by Ukrainian forces in June and July of this year.
The Russian online retailer Ozon said that two of its logistics facilities in Ufa and Orenburg had been attacked by Ukrainian drones overnight.
Search and rescue operations are ongoing in parts of Nepal and Tibet affected by destructive flash floods. Over 160 people were killed and over a thousand are still missing. Over 50 of those missing are Ukrainian citizens. The catastrophic floods were triggered when part of a glacier high in the Himalayas collapsed into a river. The subsequent wave of muddy water swept through a popular tourist area.
According to the Polish Foreign Ministry, there is no information of any Polish nationals affected by the floods. Experts warned that due to current conditions, another flood could hit the already ravaged region. Teams from all over the world, including the EU and the US, are headed to the affected areas to help with search and rescue operations.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Moscow to warn Russian officials against escalating tensions with NATO members, particularly the Baltic states, according to sources familiar with the matter. Ratcliffe travelled to Moscow on Tuesday for an unannounced visit, his first to the Russian capital in the capacity of CIA director.
One source close to the matter said Ratcliffe’s visit was intended primarily to warn Russia against any escalatory action against the Baltic states, a claim later denied by Donald Trump in an interview. His visit comes amid intensifying Russia Ukraine drone and missile exchanges that often reach far beyond the front lines, as well as an increasingly aggressive Russian posture against Ukraine’s allies.
Earlier in August, US intelligence assessments warned that the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin could test NATO’s resolve with a limited attack on an alliance member as early as this autumn.
The explosive drone discovered at the Leipzig airport in Germany earlier this month appears to be the typical model used by Russian military intelligence, according to US intelligence officials. ABC News reported that US intelligence officials assessed the drone showed signs that it was produced by Russia’s GRU. The drone was found on the tarmac of the Leipzig airport on 5th August in the vicinity of a Ukrainian cargo plane carrying ammunition. The drone was loaded with military grade explosives, but its triggering mechanism was disconnected after it had been found and did not explode. Also on 5th August, a second unidentified flying object collided with an incoming DHL cargo plane at the Leipzig airport. German authorities later discovered a further drone and explosives at a field near the airport.
A major online disinformation campaign has been launched to sow discord between Poland and the Czech Republic over the Trans-Olza border region. Experts say the campaign bears all the hallmarks of a fake narrative created by Russia.
A consistent pattern has emerged in recent weeks on Czech social media, posting stories claiming that Poland wants to annex Trans-Olza in eastern Czech Republic, a region with linguistic ties to Poland. Following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Trans-Olza was awarded to Czechoslovakia in 1920 after a brief border war. Poland forcibly annexed the region during the 1938 Munich crisis. The territory was not returned to Czechoslovakia until after the end of the Second World War in 1945.
A post calling for a pro-Czech demonstration attracted thousands of views. The profile that paid for the post was created only recently. The post itself contains spelling mistakes and the account uses AI generated content, all common signs of disinformation.
Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski described the 1938 annexation as foolish and should be avoided as a cause for division. Czech MEP Tomáš Zdechovský stated that Czechs have today the best relations with Poland in history, adding: “Dear Vladimir Putin, go with your propaganda.”
Up to three years in prison for denying the Holocaust. That is the sentence Grzegorz Braun, one of the leaders of Poland’s far right, may soon be facing. The Institute of National Remembrance has charged the politician for his claims that the gas chambers in Auschwitz were not a historical fact.
Prosecutors from the Institute of National Remembrance are charging Braun over words from 2025. Publicly denying facts about the Holocaust in Poland is a crime punishable by a fine or up to three years in prison. Poles were the second largest ethnicity after Jews to be exterminated in concentration camps while under Nazi German occupation in the Second World War.
Responding to the charges, Braun is not only refusing to admit guilt, he is doubling down. The presence of traces of hydrogen cyanide in the remains of the instruments of mass destruction was unequivocally confirmed in scientific studies conducted in the 1990s by the Professor Jan Sehn Institute of Forensic Research in Kraków.
It is not the first time Braun has been at the centre of a major scandal. He previously used a fire extinguisher on a Jewish menorah candle in parliament, tore an LGBT exhibition to pieces and set an EU flag on fire. He and his party are also known for their questionable ties to Russia.
Despite this, Braun’s party enjoys stable support of around 10 percent in opinion polls just over a year before Poland’s parliamentary elections. Prosecutors were able to lay charges against Braun after the European Parliament had earlier stripped him of his MEP immunity. It is now the fifth time Braun has lost his parliamentary immunity in the span of just two years.
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